With the advent of e-mail, texting, instant messaging, and other electronic communications, the volume of standard mail has dropped from 102.5 billion pieces in 2006 to 80 billion pieces in 2015. Historically, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) was responsible for the postal activities of preparing, sorting, and transporting mail. In order to reduce operational costs, the USPS began offering discounts to mailers who engage in a number of activities that reduce the costs incurred by the USPS in processing mail. For example, worksharing discounts are offered for activities performed by the mailer such as (1) barcoding and preparing mail to be sorted by USPS automated equipment to reduce the need for manual sorting; (2) presorting mail by ZIP Code or specific delivery location; and (3) entering mail at a USPS facility that generally is closer to the final destination of the mail. In 2015, about 85% of the market-dominant mail volume is workshared mail.
One specific worksharing discount is for sorting mail into a carrier route delivery point sequence (DPS). The DPS includes the mail arranged by address in the sort order that a postal carrier would deliver the mail to the addressees. In this manner, a postal carrier receives a presorted stack of mail and then proceeds to deliver the mail by starting at the front of the stack and delivering each piece of mail along the carrier predetermined route. Note that other sorting methods may be used for various other delivery, storage and warehousing locations.
Mail includes both letters and post cards. Post cards are typically double sided and contain the names and addresses of the sender and recipient. Post cards also typically include a message from the sender to the recipient and may include both text and graphics. For a mailing campaign, a single sender may send hundreds or thousands or more of pieces of mail to recipients. In some instances, each piece of mail can include the same message to each recipient, or in some instances, each piece of mail can include a different message for each recipient.
Mail is typically prepared by a printing operation. As printing technologies migrate from traditional printing methods such as lithography to digital printing, use of digital printers and associated processing of printed images and page layouts in digital printing systems has dramatically increased. While traditional printing methods may still be more cost effective for large quantities of standardized print on a single page size, the cost of digital printing systems and associated media has continued to decrease, making digital printing more affordable. In addition, digital printing technology can often facilitate customized printing in a more cost-effective way that traditional high volume printing methods.
One type of customized printing is known as variable-data printing (VDP) (also known as variable-information printing or VIP or VI or variable-data publishing). VDP is a form of on-demand printing in which elements such as text, graphics and images may be changed from one printed piece to the next, without stopping or slowing down the printing method. For example, a set of personalized letters or postcards, each with the same basic layout, can be printed with a different name and address on each letter, while retaining other common elements, such as images, text, associated drop shadows, or other common elements. Variable data printing is typically used for direct marketing, customer relationship management, advertising and invoicing on self-mailers, brochures, or postcard campaigns, but may also be used for a range of other printing applications where customization is required. An article describing VDP entitled “Speaking in Tongues: Sorting Out Variable Data Printing Languages by Eliot Harper, incorporated by reference herein, is available at www.fujixerox.com.au/products/image/media/TSR-0906-Speak-Tongues-reprint.pdf. VDP printing may be implemented using a language such as Personalized Print Markup Language or PPML, which is described in an article entitled “Introduction to the Personalized Print Markup Language: The PPML Family of XML Standards, available at ppml.podi.org/component/option,com_docman/Itemid,0/task,doc_download/gid,13&Itemid=/ which explains how PPML can be used to implement VDP by caching images and reusing them.
VDP is a direct outgrowth of digital printing technology, which harnesses computer systems, digital printing devices, and specialized software to create high-quality black and white or full color documents with a look and feel comparable to conventional offset printing. VDP enables the mass customization of documents via digital print technology, as opposed to the mass-production of a single document using offset lithography. For example, instead of producing 10,000 copies of a single document to deliver a single message to 10,000 customers, variable data printing provides for printing 10,000 unique documents with customized messages for each customer.
Digital printing presses may be capable of printing on a variety of types and sizes of card or paper stock. Printing on larger paper sizes may be more efficient and increase productivity, but would require printing multiple pieces of mail on a single sheet of paper stock or across the width of a roll of paper stock. However, not every print order requires many pieces, and traditionally, print orders that are sent to a digital printing press from different locations are not co-mingled because the data sets are usually different and are typically closely associated with the design of the pieces of mail within print order. As a result of this, the relative cost of printing smaller print orders can be higher than larger print orders.
Current systems provide for sorting the output for a single print job for delivery; or for ganging up the output from several print jobs of the same size for imposition. Ganged imposition is often used with VDP, such that many documents of the same size, but personalized to the individual recipient, are laid out to the plate specifications of a printer in a single press run. At the same time, there is a need to optimize, against multiple different personalized print tasks, by providing for the ganged imposition intermingling different print jobs of the same size for imposition and digital delivery to the press. However, if the intermingling of the like-sized print jobs does not preserve the sort order of the data (such as a postal sort order to optimize postage) considerable additional expenses result.